While the the outcomes of revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East are far from certain, what is clear is that the world has seen historic changes that can be in part attributed to so-called connection technologies. After Ross announced on Twitter and Facebook that he would be leaving the State Department this month, we connected to discuss about his plans and reflections on his tenure.

The book is not a technical manual, or a list of what to do and not to do. It is rather a collection of information, anecdotes, and experiences. It recounts episodes involving foreign ministers and ambassadors, as well as their ways of interacting with the tool and exploring its great potential.

Deng Fei, a renowned Chinese journalist and social activist, is conducting an interesting survey over Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. He’s asked a simple question: “What is the river like in your hometown? While celebrating Chinese New Year at home, please take a photo of your river and upload it to Weibo for us to see.”

How does the evidence Hanson points to reveal some sense of change in the institutional logics that underscore the practice of public diplomacy and, more generally, that of U.S. diplomacy? "Baked in" suggests that technologies and their use have settled into more legitimated practices, been incorporated into institutional norms, and otherwise become a part of the common-place material "equipment" of diplomacy.

In 2012, Fergus Hanson released two reports covering the scope of "e-diplomacy" within the U.S. State Department. He provided a broad view of how the State Department had adopted social media and other IT platforms to accomplish the business of diplomacy. Facebook pages for U.S. embassies, tweeting ambassadors, and new forms of knowledge management were among the examples cited to illustrate a larger trend towards the incorporation of information technology into the practice of statecraft.

Kris Kam, a 28-year-old advertising executive in Singapore, tells me, for example, that when his mother asked him to buy her a new smartphone, she requested a Samsung Galaxy S3 “just like the white one she saw in her favorite Korean drama, My Love, Madame Butterfly.”